Lurkling (which was a mistype, but I rather like the word) around Cape Town is a small sub-strata of people with whom I was friends, lo, these many, many years ago, i.e. when I was a silly undergrad or an almost as silly MA student, but with whom I am no longer in contact now that I am an occasionally sensible PhD. Every now and then, like about every four years, the moons of Saturn form a weird conjunction, or something, and I end up in the same room as some of them* (often while eyeing each other suspiciously from opposite sides thereof). This happened today, the occasion being Mich's mad long weekend in CT, said gathering being well-lubricated by buckets of soup and excellent red wine. (Cape Town has recollected that it's got a hot date with this winter thingy, and is putting on its best rain and cold. I am chilled, but happy).

This is all well and fine, but these meetings have the weirdest effect on me, in terms of introverted emotional wossname. For a start, the person I was, way back when I actually hung around with the sub-strata, was an idiot. Frankly. OK, it was The Years Of The Bastard Boyfriend From Hell, and post-traumatic stress resulting therefrom, but that really wasn't an excuse for some of the stupidities I committed. And the problem is, notwithstanding the fact that I've actually grown up, realised, repented, done some quick personality re-engineering, and got a life, these meetings still cause me to damned well regress to a state of mind where I cordially despise myself, as though I never grew up at all. And the logic is a bitch: since I don't have any current interaction with the sub-strata, the only terms on which I am able to encounter them are those of the past; since I have no other ways of thinking about them, the horrible, inescapable conclusion is that they have no other ways of thinking about me.

Bloody past. So over it now. There's nothing like thinking you're moving right along and becoming a better, higher, less idiotic person, only to realise that the ex self you thought you'd shucked like a snake-skin is, in fact, dragging behind you, firmly attached, like a particularly embarrassing tail whose fur no longer matches your butt.

Memo to self: spend rest of life with head in paper bag.

*Oops. Edited to add that, of course, I end up in the same room with members of the sub-strata, not, as it might at first appear, with Saturn's moons. Although I am cheerfully willing to admit that socialising with the moons might also have its good points.